You want lower cost-per-seat and easier maintenence overall? Spend half that money on a powerful server, and convert the desktop machines for use as thin clients. No more tweaking settings on each system! No more cleaning up after settings screwed up by users on each system!
I'm surprised not to see more references to the stories about other organizations doing this, such as:
Since you line 'em up so nice, I have to knock a few down:
get paid less as a skilled worker;
Personally, I make the same number of CA$ as I did US$, and the cost of living overall is different by approximately the same as the exchange rate. The city you live in makes more difference.
almost 1/2 your paycheck goes to income tax, employment insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan (which will by dry in 10-20 years)
My taxes in Alberta are a bit lower than they were in Michigan. Canadians think their taxes are high pretty much the same way Americans do.
only one airline, and man does it suck
Unless you're used to US airlines -- this person obviously never few cross-continent on Northworst. Air Canada, by comparison, is fabulous, although it's gotten worse since merging with Canadian Airlines.
yeah, ok - it's a little colder
Ontario weather is basically the same as Michigan or Upstate New York weather. Alberta is colder but sunnier in the winter, but comparitively dry. It really does feel less cold when there's less humidity, and cooler in the summer (and it's as warm as Michigan summer but without the humidity).
the healthcare system is spiralling downwards due to funding shortages passed onto the provinces from a sneaky federal government that wants to report a "surplus"
This is true, and it's worst in Alberta. In another decade, it might be as bad as in the US!
lack of world class cities and attractions
That would be the Canadian inferiority complex talking. Here in Edmonton, it's driven them to build the biggest mall in the world (competing with the Japanese, not that little "Mall of America"), not that a mall with a roller coaster at one end, water park in another, dolphins in a third, and a skating rink is that much of an attraction, throw the biggest folk music festival in the world (efmf.ab.ca), and maintain the most wooded city parkland of any city in Canada (or maybe North America?) -- off the top of my head.
What I'd like to see is a Debian distro on the BSD kernel. They've got a HURD distro, which is very cool. If they're trying to show how unbiased they are, wouldn't it make more sense to help heal the smaller divisions with the BSD community first? Not to mention that it would be extremely handy to be able to do apt-get updates on a BSD pf firewall...
I'm amazed that there's just one obscure comment about support for antialiased fonts with this release! Better support for antialiasing would be a huge reason to upgrade in itself.
Anyone have a summary of how easy it is to use this feature?
What I've been most interested to see about Tribes 2 for Linux is how the performance compares with the windos version. I installed the game under win98 (w/98lite) and the performance sucked. On the same box, I've installed the Linux version, and it's quite playable!
I notice the system requirements are listed as being the same. Has anyone else done a side-by-side comparison like this?
Interesting to see the inventor won an award (near the bottom), yet none of their new laptops seem to offer that folding keyboard. Apparently named TrackWrite, but it seems to me they just called it the ThinkPad folding keyboard...?
I bought the card because, as a gamer, playing Tribes 2 (just picked it up yesterday, actually) smoothly at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color just r0X0rs.
It's worth mentioning here that Tribes 2 is
available for Linux. If you got it yesterday, that was presumably the windos version. The Linux one isn't out until Monday!:-(
Speaking of which, a lot of people have observed that Quake 3 for Linux might have done a lot better if it had been anywhere near as available as Quake 3 for win32. Instead, people didn't necessarily even know it existed, and Id decided there was no Linux market for games. Will the same thing happen here?
Whatever twinkie marked "healthcare" as "informative" obviously hasn't moved from the US to Canada. I have, and the healthcare in Canada has been much better (not to mention obviously more uniform).
"Flamebait" would have been a better tag (not that I'm easily baited;-)...
If you've got to use ASP, there are a number of solutions that already work on BSD!
The most complete is a commercial package from
Halcyon Software, called Instant ASP. There's a
comparison
between iASP and Chili!ASP on the site (hard to find just with their links). Since iASP is Java (servlet) based, it also makes a decent package to support migration from ASP to JSP.
There are also at least a couple free ASP tools that work fine on BSD:
Apache::ASP (Perl only), and ASP2PHP, which supports a certain amount of automatic conversion from ASP VBscript pages to PHP.
No reason we can't go out and do the same thing with a faster system board. Using a cooler, lower power CPU makes sense, of course (can you get Crusoe boards for a reasonable price?). I'd like to know how easy it would be to make a network activity LED for the front panel. Time to break out the tools and put that old 19" enclosure in the basement to some use!
Uh, no. Making two large demographic segments winners does not mean "everybody" wins.
There are certainly people who fall in neither of your categories: Who can't or aren't willing to pay and who hate seeing ads. There may still be merit in the idea that paying a subscription could get some users extra services, but in my opinion, those should always be in the form of "extras" without which the service is still entirely useable.
Paid subscriptions could go toward an extra set of servers to improve performance, for example. Those servers wouldn't exist without the funds contributed by these "patron" users (hello, M-Netters), so non-paying users wouldn't lose anything.
The Debian Linux distro is supposed to become kernel agnostic, at least between the Linux and Hurd kernels. You'll be able to use either kernel in the relative comfort of your familiar Debian environment. Would it be so hard for someone to take that in the *BSD direction as well?
Sure, MS has to publish good books on writing solid code! After all, they leave it to application developers to write extra-solid code in an effort to make up for the platform's instability. Before you laugh, notice what an (unfortunately) successful model it's been for them.:-(
Resorting to the worn-out automobile line of analogies, it looks to me like AMD needs to spin off a differently named company to sell the "quality" line of (really AMD) processors. Pull an "Acura" in other words.
Oh great. Is that an example of the "Slashdot inserts a space" bug? The first link looked fine in the preview. It was just around the book title. I'm just glad there was another link right after it!
These planes look like a first step on the control side of what's required for the Soldierboys in that book (and in _Forever_War_, which I didn't like as well). The lamprey cyborg is a first step on the neural interface side. How worried should we be?
Look for latency to be up around 500 ms, actually. We're talking about latency bad enough to notice even in web surfing, never mind telnet, ssh, or Quake sessions. Modem latency is only 150 ms, and I don't know any gamers that are happy with that.
On the other hand, low-orbit satellite arrays are on the way (again), and they'll be able to offer latencies around 30 ms. Similar to ISDN, even if it doesn't touch DSL and cable (at about 3 ms).
If there are so many exploits for Unixes and not NT, why is it that despite an apparent minority of servers, there are more defacements of NT sites?
Besides, as another poster pointed out, if we hear about a vulnerability in an open source OS, whether or not it's Unix-like, we can fix it a lot more easily than with closed-source NT.
By the way, I'm happy this got modded "insightful" and "interesting" but I'd have thought "informative" was more appropriate!
Good to know some Slashdotters can at least recognize a good meeting format when it's set in front of them.;-)
It's disappointing how few of the people I've described this to have caught on to its benefits. An aspect I didn't even mention above is that it helps give just enough structure to keep things moving without stifling good input.
There's a group in Michigan (Ann Arbor), which I miss very much now that I've moved away, with a meeting format that goes a LONG way to overcoming most of the problems you've cited. They're a smallish group, but still get some great presenters. The format is:
"Welcome and Abuse of New Members"
(This is an opportunity for the moderator to welcome new members; the "abuse" has been a joking misnomer all the years I've gone...)
Administrivia (getting announcements and logistics out of the way)
The Question Session
Note: Important point!No answers are allowed yet. The questions are written up on a whiteboard or flipchart.
Presentation
Generally an invited speaker.
Generally followed by a break for pop & cookies.
Answer Session
Now the questions get answered. This has two really good effects: First, everyone has gotten to ponder the questions, if subconsciously, all during the presentation. Second, people interested in the questions have extra incentive to stick around for the presentation, even if it doesn't closely match their interests. The latter point goes a long way in giving the group a good reputation with presenters.
"Rumors and Innuendo" and the gradual disintigration of the meeting...
Lastly, a lot of the group go to a post-meeting chat at a local bar.
Now I've just gotta get a similar group started in the town where I've moved...
My problem with calling it "email" (apart from it looking like the German word for enamel) is mostly that it doesn't follow English pronunciation conventions. With "e-mail" it's obvious you're s'posed to say "e" and then "mail" -- but with "email" it looks to me like you're meant to say "em" and "ail" (which is close to how the German word is pronounced, come to that).
"Pure" isn't the issue with TSR games. "Fun" is. The GURPS games, the Hero system, and even parodies like Tunnels and Trolls were a lot more fun than D&D, Star Frontiers, or Gangbusters (all of which pointlessly required completely new rule systems).
There's nothing at all wrong with people playing hack & slash, and even hack & slash role playing games. It's just highly annoying when that's perceived as the whole point of all Role Playing Games for all of us. Screw that!
(Hey, this is a fine demonstration of how nice the Slashdot interface really is! Looking for replies to my replies helps support some amount of actual discussion, here.)
That's a very good point. I was just discussing with a friend some of the factors that line up with, but may not be related to (much less the cause of) reductions in crime rates. Violence in media came up, gun ownership versus restriction came up, health care came up (tangentally), but economic prosperity was something we overlooked. Thanks!
Slashdot Mirror
You want lower cost-per-seat and easier maintenence overall? Spend half that money on a powerful server, and convert the desktop machines for use as thin clients. No more tweaking settings on each system! No more cleaning up after settings screwed up by users on each system!
I'm surprised not to see more references to the stories about other organizations doing this, such as:
Binson's Hospital Supplies
Newspaper Association of America
(vendor) Integrity Networking Systems
City of Largo
Home Depot
. . .
And if you'd like to really cut down on MS licenses, don't forget about Crossover Office.
- get paid less as a skilled worker;
Personally, I make the same number of CA$ as I did US$, and the cost of living overall is different by approximately the same as the exchange rate. The city you live in makes more difference.- almost 1/2 your paycheck goes to income tax, employment insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan (which will by dry in 10-20 years)
My taxes in Alberta are a bit lower than they were in Michigan. Canadians think their taxes are high pretty much the same way Americans do.- only one airline, and man does it suck
Unless you're used to US airlines -- this person obviously never few cross-continent on Northworst. Air Canada, by comparison, is fabulous, although it's gotten worse since merging with Canadian Airlines.- yeah, ok - it's a little colder
Ontario weather is basically the same as Michigan or Upstate New York weather. Alberta is colder but sunnier in the winter, but comparitively dry. It really does feel less cold when there's less humidity, and cooler in the summer (and it's as warm as Michigan summer but without the humidity).- the healthcare system is spiralling downwards due to funding shortages passed onto the provinces from a sneaky federal government that wants to report a "surplus"
This is true, and it's worst in Alberta. In another decade, it might be as bad as in the US!- lack of world class cities and attractions
That would be the Canadian inferiority complex talking. Here in Edmonton, it's driven them to build the biggest mall in the world (competing with the Japanese, not that little "Mall of America"), not that a mall with a roller coaster at one end, water park in another, dolphins in a third, and a skating rink is that much of an attraction, throw the biggest folk music festival in the world (efmf.ab.ca), and maintain the most wooded city parkland of any city in Canada (or maybe North America?) -- off the top of my head.What I'd like to see is a Debian distro on the BSD kernel. They've got a HURD distro, which is very cool. If they're trying to show how unbiased they are, wouldn't it make more sense to help heal the smaller divisions with the BSD community first? Not to mention that it would be extremely handy to be able to do apt-get updates on a BSD pf firewall...
Anyone have a summary of how easy it is to use this feature?
I notice the system requirements are listed as being the same. Has anyone else done a side-by-side comparison like this?
Interesting to see the inventor won an award (near the bottom), yet none of their new laptops seem to offer that folding keyboard. Apparently named TrackWrite, but it seems to me they just called it the ThinkPad folding keyboard...?
Speaking of which, a lot of people have observed that Quake 3 for Linux might have done a lot better if it had been anywhere near as available as Quake 3 for win32. Instead, people didn't necessarily even know it existed, and Id decided there was no Linux market for games. Will the same thing happen here?
"Flamebait" would have been a better tag (not that I'm easily baited ;-)...
The most complete is a commercial package from Halcyon Software, called Instant ASP. There's a comparison between iASP and Chili!ASP on the site (hard to find just with their links). Since iASP is Java (servlet) based, it also makes a decent package to support migration from ASP to JSP.
There are also at least a couple free ASP tools that work fine on BSD: Apache::ASP (Perl only), and ASP2PHP, which supports a certain amount of automatic conversion from ASP VBscript pages to PHP.
No reason we can't go out and do the same thing with a faster system board. Using a cooler, lower power CPU makes sense, of course (can you get Crusoe boards for a reasonable price?). I'd like to know how easy it would be to make a network activity LED for the front panel. Time to break out the tools and put that old 19" enclosure in the basement to some use!
There are certainly people who fall in neither of your categories: Who can't or aren't willing to pay and who hate seeing ads. There may still be merit in the idea that paying a subscription could get some users extra services, but in my opinion, those should always be in the form of "extras" without which the service is still entirely useable.
Paid subscriptions could go toward an extra set of servers to improve performance, for example. Those servers wouldn't exist without the funds contributed by these "patron" users (hello, M-Netters), so non-paying users wouldn't lose anything.
The Debian Linux distro is supposed to become kernel agnostic, at least between the Linux and Hurd kernels. You'll be able to use either kernel in the relative comfort of your familiar Debian environment. Would it be so hard for someone to take that in the *BSD direction as well?
Sure, MS has to publish good books on writing solid code! After all, they leave it to application developers to write extra-solid code in an effort to make up for the platform's instability. Before you laugh, notice what an (unfortunately) successful model it's been for them. :-(
Resorting to the worn-out automobile line of analogies, it looks to me like AMD needs to spin off a differently named company to sell the "quality" line of (really AMD) processors. Pull an "Acura" in other words.
Oh great. Is that an example of the "Slashdot inserts a space" bug? The first link looked fine in the preview. It was just around the book title. I'm just glad there was another link right after it!
These planes look like a first step on the control side of what's required for the Soldierboys in that book (and in _Forever_War_, which I didn't like as well). The lamprey cyborg is a first step on the neural interface side. How worried should we be?
On the other hand, low-orbit satellite arrays are on the way (again), and they'll be able to offer latencies around 30 ms. Similar to ISDN, even if it doesn't touch DSL and cable (at about 3 ms).
If there are so many exploits for Unixes and not NT, why is it that despite an apparent minority of servers, there are more defacements of NT sites?
Besides, as another poster pointed out, if we hear about a vulnerability in an open source OS, whether or not it's Unix-like, we can fix it a lot more easily than with closed-source NT.
By the way, I'm happy this got modded "insightful" and "interesting" but I'd have thought "informative" was more appropriate!
Good to know some Slashdotters can at least recognize a good meeting format when it's set in front of them. ;-)
It's disappointing how few of the people I've described this to have caught on to its benefits. An aspect I didn't even mention above is that it helps give just enough structure to keep things moving without stifling good input.
Now I've just gotta get a similar group started in the town where I've moved...
My problem with calling it "email" (apart from it looking like the German word for enamel) is mostly that it doesn't follow English pronunciation conventions. With "e-mail" it's obvious you're s'posed to say "e" and then "mail" -- but with "email" it looks to me like you're meant to say "em" and "ail" (which is close to how the German word is pronounced, come to that).
There's nothing at all wrong with people playing hack & slash, and even hack & slash role playing games. It's just highly annoying when that's perceived as the whole point of all Role Playing Games for all of us. Screw that!
That's a very good point. I was just discussing with a friend some of the factors that line up with, but may not be related to (much less the cause of) reductions in crime rates. Violence in media came up, gun ownership versus restriction came up, health care came up (tangentally), but economic prosperity was something we overlooked. Thanks!
Sad to consider, tho'...